'My husband and I conceived after divorce. I'm conflicted and heartbroken.' UPDATED 2X

Real life is messy and doesn't follow the rules of what "makes sense."

In a popular post on the True Off My Chest subreddit, a woman shared how she got pregnant with her ex-husband. She wrote:

"My husband and I conceived after divorce. I'm conflicted and heartbroken."

This is long long long. My ex-husband and I were married for 10 years, although the last 2 were spent in variations of separation. We’ve been divorced for roughly a year. We have 3 kids: 10, 8, 5 I’m pregnant with our 4th baby. I don’t know if we’ll actually be parents to 4 kids or not. I’m so conflicted. We are so conflicted.

There was no ab*se or cheating in our marriage, although he did sleep with somebody else during our separation. There are a variety of other reasons why we ultimately got divorced. After the initial feelings of failure and heartache, and there was an immense amount of heartache on my end despite being the one who filed for divorce, we were able to get along pretty well.

It become platonic so quickly and it’s like when we removed the romantic and married relationship from the equation things got so much better. We split time with our kids 50/50. That’s really hard for me because being mom is such a huge part of my identity that I still sometime struggle to know what to do with myself during his time with the kids.

Ultimately I’m happy that he’s a loving involved father and I’m glad that it they do spend half their time with him, even if I still sometimes cry over not being with them all the time. We still do things together as a family sometimes. We sit together at our kids’ activities, things like that. He has a girlfriend now. She seems nice. He let her not long after our divorce was finalized. It hurt.

I cried way too much over it. He waited over 6 months to introduce her to our kids, which I was thankful for. My kids like her. Our youngest child was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital not long ago. He had surgery. In the grand scheme of things it was a pretty minor surgery and he’s absolutely fine now, but this is my baby and he had to spend multiple nights in the hospital, so this was a big deal for me.

My ex-husband was there the entire time, being a great dad, being a supportive “partner” to me as I worried over every little thing. We spent all those nights in the hospital together and I remembered why I married him. He was always able to be the strong, level headed rock for me. He was this safe person who I knew would take care of everything and protect me.

When we were in the hospital he told me that I’m the most important woman in his life, still. When our son was discharged, my ex-husband came back to my house. MY baby was home safe, our other two children were excited to be home after staying with my husband’s sister for several nights. We were all together at home like a family again. That night after our kids were in bed we had s*x.

I hadn’t been hoping for it or planning it. It was just like as soon as the kids were tucked away I’m their rooms we were having this intensely passionate, needy, amazing s*x that we shouldn’t have been having. We went to sleep in my bed and at some point in the middle of the night we had s*x again.

The next morning we both decided our emotions with the whole situation with our son just got the better of us. We said we didn’t regret sleeping together but that’s all it was and we were just going to go back to our normal divorced lives. We wouldn’t make it awkward, just move on. Then I found out I was pregnant. We didn’t use a c*ndom. I don’t even have c*ndoms in my house anymore.

I’m not on birth control. I haven’t been since we divorced. I haven’t needed it since I haven’t had the time or interest t0 start dating again. I really wanted to be single for a while. I know I was ovulating when we slept together, which was probably a contributing subconscious factor as to why it happened. My body sees him being a good dad to our kids and it wants another!

My cycle is like clockwork and we’ve always conceived on the first try every time we’ve “tried” to get pregnant. Our first kid was not even a try, it was a “two weeks before your wedding you find out you’re pregnant and spend your honeymoon with morning sickness” surprise. So now I’m about 8 weeks pregnant. I’ve known for about a week. I just told him this past weekend.

I didn’t know if I would tell him at all. I realize now that I only told him in hopes that he’d tell me what to do and figure the situation out for me. Only he didn’t. I know it makes no sense to have a baby with somebody I chose to divorce. I don’t need a 4th child. Why can’t I let go of this though?

The internet had a lot of comments and questions in response.

[deleted] wrote:

What was his response when you told him?

OP responded:

Didn’t say anything at first. I finally was like “say something!” He said he didn’t know what to say. He thought I was on birth control, a baby was not what we needed, he was in shock.

yeahthatfrenchguy wrote:

Whichever way you decide to handle the pregnancy, his partner has a right to know that he cheated.

OP responded:

I’m not arguing that, but she’s not my main concern right now.

Stock-Calligrapher-36 wrote:

Why did you divorce him?

OP responded:

I don’t know that I want to get too far into that. Am I avoiding thinking about all of the negatives? Yes I might be. I think we grew apart. We wanted different things. We got to the point where every thing the other did annoyed the hell out of us.

He resented me and I didn’t want to be in a relationship with somebody who resented me and blamed me for some things. At one point he was drinking a lot and that really annoyed me. A lot of little things. We were not happy. We were happy once, but we weren’t happy at the end.

PlusEquivalent8444 wrote:

I don't know what the right answer is for you. However, your situation prior to the pregnancy sounds a lot like mine. My ex and I were at each other's throats before we divorced. He was not super involved with our kids, he was a pretty heavy binge drinker, he wasn't supportive or even nice to me most of the time at the end. However, after the initial hurt of the divorce, he changed.

He had the choice to continue down the path he was or step up and be a good dad and co-parent. And that's what he chose to do. We co-parent great, I'm unbelievably proud of us and I'd say we're even friends. I've said it before and I'm not ashamed to say it again: If he was the man then that he is now, we would still be together.

Hands down. If this is the case for you, I think the baby is a blessing. Good luck to you all, I hope it works out.

OP responded:

Yeah that sort of how it’s been for us. I like who he is now.

This happened to me too. Not fully, but close. We never fought. We were actually always great friends. We just lost our passion because life beat it out of us. We went through some very hard, traumatic times, (we lost our first son to SIDS on Christmas Day when he was 3 1/2 month old). We never went to therapy or anything. This was the early 90s.

We just kind of pulled up our bootstraps and kept trucking along— working sh#$ty jobs for sh#$ty money and trying to keep our heads above the water while just dying a little bit inside every day. Eventually, he had an affair. I found out and immediately made him leave. It was really hard.

Sometimes I still think about it and can’t equate the man I know now with the man who lied to me and cheated on me for months. I know everybody on Reddit swears once a cheater, always a cheater. I don’t know how much truth is in that, but I know for a fact it wasn’t true for us.

By the time he had the affair, we were both in our mid 30s and had been married since we were 18. We had four kids that were my whole world. My identity was 100% mother. We were both very burned out. It happened. We split up for nine months. During that time, I dated quite a bit.

I don’t think I could have given him another chance if I hadn’t. It’s like I had to even the score? It was actually awful and self-destructive— but it served a purpose. That nine months apart let us both know that we actually wanted to be together. That we weren’t together out of habit or out of friendship— that we had had a really good thing and we wanted it back.

It was like he flipped a switch. It’s been 20 years since then and for 20 years he has been the most amazing, present fantastic husband anybody could possibly ask for. He is still my best friend. This was very long and it still the most condensed possible version that I can give you.

As hurtful as I’m sure your divorce was and all of this has been, maybe you guys just needed a reset? Is your heart telling you to try again? Is his??

*Edited to add that a lot of reason we got back together was because he was such a great father. Even when we split up, there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t stop by the house to see the kids for a few hours or bring them to his place. I knew nobody else was ever going to look at our four kids and see what we both saw. That was a huge deciding factor for me.

OP responded:

I’m so sorry to hear about your baby. I can see how that could lead to the breakdown of your marriage. As for us, having him there overnight and the next morning, being together at home with our kids just felt so right. I’m not even talking about the s*x, just being together. As soon as he left that morning I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to cry for a little bit.

giag27 wrote:

What was his response when you told him? Is his girlfriend still in the picture? Can your relationship be salvaged with marriage counselling? I mean no cheating or major betrayals, sounds like there’s love there still??

OP responded:

He didn’t really know what to say at first. He admitted a baby wasn’t what we needed, but since then we’ve both admitted we feel a little conflicted about it. He even told me he felt an unexpected twinge of excitement when I told him, but rationally it’s a stupid idea. He’s still with his girlfriend. I highly doubt he’s said a word to her.

PGLBK wrote:

You willingly slept with a taken man, while ovulating, without protection, despite knowing that you get pregnant easily, on the first try. That reads as if you want him back and thought another baby will reunite your family. Maybe that was an unconscious decision, but you made it.

The guy is a major POS, but you aren’t’ blameless either. Keep the baby or don’t, but know that if your relationship failed once, it will likely fail the second time too.

A week later, OP shared an update.

I posted about a week ago. My ex husband and I have been divorced for about a year. We have 3 kids, ranging from 10-5 years old. We have gotten along great since the divorce, better than when we were married. It’s almost like we’re friends, can do things with our kids, and enjoy being around each other.

About 2 months ago, our youngest unexpectedly ended up having surgery and spending several nights in the hospital. He’s fine now. My ex husband and I stayed together with our son the entire time he was in the hospital. When he was discharged, my ex-husband came back to my house (or former family home) at our son’s request.

He was just supposed to spend a few hours there, help our son get settled, then go home. However, I guess all of the emotions and being together as a family in our former shared home got the better of us and we ended up having s*x twice that night. Now, I’m 9 weeks pregnant.

I wasn’t on birth control (was on it until after our divorce was finalized, but have been intentionally remaining single for a while and not involved with men in any way, so was giving my body a break from birth control). Initially we were undecided about what to do, but as of last weekend we made the decision together to have the baby.

It feels sort of crazy to me, definitely not a situation I ever imagined I’d find myself in. I already picture this baby looking just like our other kids. I guess that’s why I struggled with the idea of not continuing with the pregnancy, which I know isn’t really a valid reason to have a baby. This is probably the last baby I’ll ever have.

I’m 39 so even if I were to meet a man who I trusted enough to want to have a child with and a future with, I’ll be well into my 40s by then (I plan to be very picky, but I’m not even at the point of wanting to find somebody new yet). We’re not getting back together, for now. We get along great when we’re not married and living in the same house.

We feel it’d be irresponsible to all of our children to attempt to get back together right now because of this. Chances are higher that we’ll be able to co-parent this baby successfully if we live separately; however, we are committed to working together to do what has to be done to take care of the baby when he or she gets here.

Our kids are doing so great right now and they seem very happy and secure with the current set up of our lives and homes so we want to stick with this for now. I don’t know if I really understand what I’m getting myself into. Our other kids were all born into a marriage and a two-parent home. I know that sharing custody of a baby will be a lot different than the kids going back and forth between homes.

I might be feeling too positive about it, but I think it could work out fine. The new baby will just see this as normal, right? Next thing to worry about will be having to explain this to everyone when we tell them. My family and friends will get over it but I’m especially concerned with explaining it to our kids.

I’m worried our oldest won’t take the news well. She also knows what s*x is and how babies are made. And for everyone concerned about his girlfriend - she’s not his girlfriend anymore.

The comments quickly rolled in.

4SeasonWahine wrote:

These two are 100% getting back together within a year and then breaking up again in another.

DazedandFloating wrote:

This was my first thought too lol. They’ll have a honeymoon period because there’s a new kid in the mix and they want their family to heal and be together again. And then the past will creep up on them, their previous issues, the ex cheating on his gf, etc. And they’ll be separated again. What a lovely thing to subject your children to.

KawaiKuroNeko wrote:

The point where I got sure this will happen is her repeating that they had s*x twice and with all the details Reddit allows. Like, she's in this fantasy world where her Prince fights to take her back (whilst cheating on his girlfriend who he got instantly after the divorce, which obviously isn't shady at all).

Limetreelife wrote:

Good for her!

By her I mean the now ex-girlfriend of course.

DaniMW wrote:

I would suggest going to a family counsellor for advice on how to tell your kids that mum and dad are divorced but having a baby together! Total mind warp! You can go yourselves to tell the counsellor and get advice how to tell the children, then bring them to meet the counsellor, then tell them. They may not all need the counsellor’s help…but I’d bet your oldest will!

OP responded:

All 3 see therapists already, so I was considering asking for the therapist’s advice/input.

MrsGruusahm wrote:

I remember your last post. Did your ex tell his girlfriend that he cheated on her with you or did she discover that for herself? Genuinely curious.

OP responded:

He told her. He and I met to have a discussion about what to do moving forward on Saturday. He told her on Friday.

ElectraUnderTheSea wrote:

I may get crap for this but after 40 years on this earth and having seen a lot, I hold the opinion that a woman who has truly decided to not have a kid absolutely won’t be that careless about birth control. Consciously or not, OP wanted this to happen.

Five months later, OP shared another major update.

Several people have asked me for an update on my situation. My ex-husband and I are having a baby. My other posts are on my profile. A recap is that we were married for 10 years, divorced for almost 1.5 years now, and have 3 kids together. We slept together twice during a stressful family time and I ended up pregnant.

We’ve since admitted we are both still in love with each other, but have not actually declared that we’re back together, mainly for the same of our kids. I last posted toward the end of January. I’m 28 weeks pregnant. We’re having a little girl. As far as the pregnancy goes, it’s been like a textbook pregnancy and so I feel pretty good, just more tired than I ever remember being during pregnancy before.

My husband and I continue to live separately and share custody of our kids. We each have them 50% of the time. They’re all aware that we’re having a baby and none of them seem to be deeply confused or emotionally damaged by their divorced parents having a baby together. We explained it in an age appropriate way.

Our oldest child was more grossed out that her parents had s*x than anything else, since she now understands what s*x is and how babies are made. We’ve been involving her quite a bit and she’s excited now. I even took her to one of my appointments.

She’s excited to have a baby sister and she understands that mom and dad love her and her siblings, that we love this new baby, and that we love each other as people and as parenting partners without actually being together as a married couple in one house. Meanwhile, my husband and I have started to attend couples counseling.

We tried marriage counseling when we were separated before we divorced, but I think we were both already pretty mentally done so counseling didn’t do much for us then. I think we’re getting way more out of it now because we’re actually invested in it and putting in a lot of effort. Sometimes I feel great after a session, and at other times I feel not so great and am reminded of reasons why we divorced.

Overall, I think it’s a good thing for us no matter what happens with our relationship. We’ve been sleeping together for the last few months. We already agreed that we won’t be seeing other people at this time. I wouldn’t be saying while pregnant anyway, and it’s not as if I’ll even have time with 3 kids and a newborn.

We agreed that we will not open ourselves to being with other people while we are working on our relationship and before that conversation is had between us. We are carrying on just as we have been since our divorce, as far as our kids are concerned. Dad doesn’t spend the night at our house.

We do things together as a family sometimes, but we were doing that even before anything was rekindled between. We’re not acting as a couple when we’re together as a family. We’re friendly with each other, but there is no holding hands, kissing, etc. Our main concern is our kids.

We refuse to say we’re back together. If we officially get back together, we really want to feel certain that it’d be for the long term, that we’re ready to commit to that. We don’t want to give our kids whiplash or do anything to make them seek insecure about our family. We would like to get to that point, but we aren’t there yet. I think if my husband had his way we’d be there.

He’s ready to say he’s there now. He’d love to move back home. But he understands and agrees with my reasoning. I’d love for him to move back home too, based only on emotions. We both have things to work on, separately and together. I want to be a better spouse this time around. I thought I was being a really great wife, and I was on the surface.

I also know that right now I feel so in love and am hopped on on hormones and pregnancy happiness (I always feel super happy, super positive, and super h*rny during pregnancy, and I know I have to be careful with trusting anything I feel during this time because it’s like I’m on a 24/7 natural high.)

I think the biggest issue right now is that he’s far more “let’s throw caution to the wind” (even though he agrees with all of my reasoning) and I want to be way more careful.

The internet was deeply invested in the outcome.

BrightAd306 wrote:

I know a couple that did this and remarried and have been together an extra 20 years. Sometimes stepping back and getting perspective makes you realize that you changed and the old ways don’t work, but the new people you’ve become like each other.

OP responded:

At one point not too long ago I thought maybe we had rushed to divorce and called it quits too soon. Now I feel like the divorce absolutely had to happen. We wouldn’t be in such a good spot right now if we hadn’t gone through with the divorce.

Ragadast355 wrote:

Be careful, the toughest time comes after birth, let's see how all goes and then you, both, should speak about being together. I wish the best for you, your family and your ex. And thank you for maintaining a bunch of strangers updated with this story, that for now is very curious and beautiful in a way.

OP responded:

I think there’s a big question mark about what will happen once the baby is born. It makes sense for him to spend more time at my home (I kept our former family home), but will we be ready for that?

LastCut3224 wrote:

Why not get a duplex and "live separately?"

OP responded:

It’s been suggested and honestly it’s probably far from the worst idea.

BellaBlue06 wrote:

I really don’t understand continuing to have s*x with this man when you’re divorced and got accidentally pregnant and didn’t want to get back together. Are you guys codependent? You just want to be married but live apart?

OP responded:

Did you not read my post? If you did? Maybe I just did a really bad job of updating. We love each other. We are in couples counseling. We would like to get back together but we realize for the sake of our kids that we need to be very cautious.

Oldgal_misspt wrote:

Thank you for the update, I hope you and your ex continue to make progress and figure out a good relationship going forward. I’m enjoying your updates because sometimes life is just messy and we have to do the best we can.

OP responded:

Thanks so much.

Hopefully, this ends well for everyone.